Friday, March 27, 2009

Pacific Coast Jerky Factory is a brand name belonging to KMB Foods, Inc., of Arcadia, CA. KMB also owns the Cactus Jacks, and Cattleman's brand of jerky. They also private label jerky for several other companies.

The meat used in this Pacific Coast Jerky Factory brand is a slab style, and appears to be the same used with Mt. Shasta's Finest, one of their private labeled products that I reviewed last year. Comparing the ingredients and nutrition facts, it appears it's exactly the same jerky, just different brands.

KMB is also known for yet a different cut of meat used in Buffalo Bill's Dead Meat, Oh Boy! Oberto Thick Cuts, and Jawbone Beef Jerky.

Just for fun, I'm not going to look at my previous review for Mt Shasta's Finest, so that I can compare how close, or how different, this review comes out.

The first thing I taste off the surface of these pieces is a saltiness, followed by a meaty aroma, and some light garlic. In the chewing, what I taste is a stronger saltiness, some natural meat flavor, and plenty of seasoning.

Right off the bat, this is a flavorful jerky, highlighted by some strong seasoning, and an easily noticed meat flavor.

The dominant flavor of this jerky seems to be a toss-up between the saltiness, the seasoning, and the natural meat flavors. But I think I'll go with the saltiness. It seems to be what my mind focuses on the most. It seems to be at a medium intensity level, and is noticed on the surface flavors, and all throughout the chewing.

The natural meat flavors are perhaps the second-most dominant. It has a taste similar to the outer portion of a prime rib steak. There's a noticeable amount of black pepper taste on this jerky which helps recreate that prime rib flavor.

The seasoning blend is probably the next-most dominant flavor. It's hard to describe that flavor, though you can read what it is in the ingredients list. Mixed into that flavor is some noticeable garlic, and black pepper. The saltiness also mixes into that, and can become difficult to separate the two.

Most of these pieces have tiny red flakes which makes me wonder if there's some chile pepper on here. I don't taste the chile pepper individually, but there is perhaps a faint bit of heat. It's hard to tell if that's just the black pepper, however.

Overall, what you're going to taste in this is a saltiness off the surface, with some meaty aroma and light garlic. As you start chewing, the saltiness comes on stronger, followed by the meat flavors, and then the seasoning blend becomes more noticeable.

Meat Consistency

This a slab style jerky, in slices of whole meat, sliced thin to medium, and in small to medium sized pieces.

It's perhaps best considered a dry jerky, though there's clearly a semi-moist feel to it. Most of the pieces have a soft flexibility to them. Tearing pieces apart with my fingers seems somewhat easy, just a little bit of effort required. Chewing seems moderately easy.

The chewing texture starts out feeling stiff and hard, and requires some sucking to soften up. Once I start chewing, it seems to take about 20 seconds to where it becomes chewed down to a soft mass. At that point, it has something of a steak-like feel, but more soft, and slightly mushy. Some of these pieces are sliced thin enough, that they take on a gummy like quality, but eventually chews down much more soft and much more mushy, having a feel similar to boiled cabbage.

I found only one piece with a chunk of fat, the rest were pretty lean. However, several pieces contained gristle, but mostly in thin streaks that it didn't get in the way of chewing. But there were some thick streaks of gristle that I had to bite around, and toss away. The meat itself seems to be free of chewy sinews.

I paid $5.99 for this 3.5oz package at a Copenhagen Liquor store in Solvang, CA. That works out to a price of $1.71 per ounce.

For general jerky snacking purposes, at this $1.71 price per ounce, it seems to present a decent value. I do pick up a good deal of snackability for its good flavor intensity, the meat flavors, and the unique seasoning blend. The good overall flavor helps overcome the slight bit of toughness.

Rating

I'm giving this a good rating.

This jerky provides a good deal of snackability for its good flavor, which is enough to warrant at least an average rating. But I think the overall flavor is good enough to warrant the higher "good" rating, just because in comparison to all the other average rated jerky brands I've had, I do think it's a better tasting jerky.

But that good flavor can be tempered by the slight toughness of this jerky, and the fact that so many pieces contained gristle. Most of the gristle seems thin enough that it didn't get in the way of chewing, but others were quite difficult to chew. The higher quantity of gristle seems to be a common trait of KMB Foods' jerky, having found it in all their products.

1 comment:

Excellent review and right on the money! They used to have this jerky at Fry's Electronics in Anaheim. Fry's has this huge selection of "impulse items" as you walk toward the check-out area. I always use to pick up a pack on my way out. You are absolutely right about the saltiness. Before this jerky, I wasn't into the dry thin stuff. However, I'm a big salt fan so this jerky worked for me.

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About Best Beef Jerky

I'm Steve Johnson, and I've been in the Internet marketing and publishing business since 1997. I've been a life-long fan of beef jerky and decided to merge my profession with my snack food of choice, and gave birth to Best Beef Jerky.

I review beef jerky, turkey jerky, bison jerky, pretty much any meat jerky, even vegan jerky. I review meat sticks, biltong, cecina, carne seca, it's all fair game as long as it's meat, it's dried, and it's a snack.